The government has identified 10 lucrative mega highway projects to be awarded to private developers. These projects, involving investment of Rs 45,000 crore, will be awarded in the next two years.
These projects covering 5,000 km will be awarded on a revenue-share basis, under which the developers pay a part of the toll earnings to the government, an National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) official said.
"Since these are lucrative projects from the point of toll revenues, we would award them on revenue sharing basis," the official added.
The NHAI has already asked potential bidders to submit their initial 'request for qualification'(RFQ) documents for two of these 10 projects spread over Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.
The RFQ for 6-laning of the 436-km Ichapuram-Rajahmundry project in Andhra Pradesh, involving Rs 3,550-crore, has already been issued, while that for six-laning of the 435-km- long Kishangarh (Rajasthan)-Ahmedabad section worth Rs 4,284 crore, will be issued shortly, said the sources.
The biggest project of the 10 projects is the about Rs 8,000 crore double-laning of the 700-km stretch between Amritsar in Punjab and Jodhpur in Rajasthan.